TOLL

9 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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TOLLAuthored
The Law Mind • 1455 words
Definition
TOLL carries three distinct legal meanings that operate in entirely separate contexts. Researchers must identify which meaning applies before treating any source as relevant. 1. A charge for use of a public way or facility. A toll is a sum of money paid for the privilege of passing over a road, bridge, ferry, or similar public infrastructure, or for the use of a market or fair. The compensation paid to a miller for grinding another's grain was historically treated as a toll in this sense. Toll in this meaning is fundamentally a right of property or franchise — the owner of the road, bridge, or market holds the legal entitlement to collect it, and that entitlement is itself transferable and regulable. 2. A liberty or franchise right. In older English and Saxon law, "toll" designated not just the payment but the legal privilege itself — the right to buy and sell within a manor, to hold a fair or market, or to be exempt from toll charges elsewhere. The word carried both the active sense (right to collect) and the passive sense (right to be free from collection). This double meaning appears throughout early sources and can create confusion when the direction of the right is not specified. 3. To toll: to suspend or interrupt the running of a limitations period. As a verb in modern American legal practice, "to toll" means to stop the clock on a statute of limitations or a prescriptive period. When a limitations period is tolled, time stops running — it does not restart from zero, but the elapsed time before tolling is preserved, and the period resumes running when the tolling condition ends. This is the dominant modern American legal usage of the word. ---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To draw, pull, entice, lure; to tear in pieces; to allure with bait. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To take away; to vacate; to annul. The gap here is significant and runs in two directions. The Wiktionary definitions bear almost no relationship to any legal meaning. The Webster's 1913 definition — "to vacate or annul" — is closer to legal usage but inverts the modern American meaning: lawyers today say a limitations period is "tolled" to mean it is paused, not that it is extinguished. A researcher encountering 19th-century sources using "toll" to mean "defeat" or "take away" (as in the tolling of an entry in property law — see below) must not assume that meaning carries forward into modern statutes-of-limitations doctrine, where tolling means preservation, not destruction. ---
Common Confusion
Three distinct confusions recur: First, toll (suspend) vs. toll (defeat). In older property law, to "toll" an entry or a right of action meant to cut it off — to destroy the legal avenue entirely. A disseisor's long possession could "toll" the lord's right of entry. This usage is nearly extinct in modern practice but survives in historical sources and occasionally in adverse possession materials. It is the opposite of the modern tolling-of-limitations meaning, where tolling preserves the claim. Second, tolling vs. waiver or estoppel. Tolling suspends the running of time by operation of law or by recognized doctrine; it is distinct from a defendant's waiver of a limitations defense or from equitable estoppel, which prevents a party from asserting the defense based on conduct. The doctrines may produce similar results but arise from different legal grounds and have different evidentiary requirements. Third, toll (road charge) vs. toll (franchise right). Early sources use the word interchangeably for the payment and for the underlying franchise. A grant "of toll" in a medieval or early American charter may convey the right to collect, not merely describe a payment obligation. ---
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES Under the charge/franchise meaning: - Toll traverse: a charge for passing over a private way. - Toll thorough: a toll charged for passing through a public highway, typically justifiable by the toll-taker's maintenance obligation. - Toll dish/toll corn: payment in kind to a miller, historically regulated by statute in most American states. Under the suspension-of-limitations meaning: - Statutory tolling: a limitations period suspended by express legislative provision (minority, incompetency, imprisonment, absence of defendant from jurisdiction). - Equitable tolling: judicial suspension of the limitations period where strict application would be unjust, typically requiring reasonable diligence by the plaintiff. - Fraudulent concealment tolling: limitations suspended when the defendant's active concealment prevented the plaintiff from discovering the claim. - Class action tolling (American Pipe tolling): the filing of a class action tolls the limitations period for putative class members. ---
Why It Matters in Research
The verb "to toll" as applied to limitations periods is probably the most practically significant use of this word in contemporary American legal research, but the corpus contains substantial historical material where the word means something entirely different. Researchers must date their sources carefully. In property law sources before the mid-19th century, "tolling" an entry or a right of action almost always means cutting it off — destroying the avenue of legal redress. Adverse possession materials are particularly prone to this usage. The Law Mind property corpus carries this older idiom in significant volume, and property_89 addresses the modern disability/tolling framework that replaced the older defeat-of-entry doctrine. For limitations research, the civil procedure materials in civpro_132 address the major modern tolling doctrines, but the underlying statutes vary by jurisdiction and by claim type. Federal courts apply their own equitable tolling standards; state courts apply the forum state's tolling rules to state claims and sometimes to state-law claims brought in federal court. The franchise/road-charge meaning of toll matters primarily in constitutional and regulatory history materials — commerce clause cases, the Granger-era railroad rate cases, and 19th-century toll road franchise disputes. Toll in this sense implicates the Contracts Clause (legislative modification of toll franchises), the Commerce Clause (state tolls as burdens on interstate commerce), and early public utility regulation doctrine. Researchers in that area should watch for the word doing double duty as both the payment and the franchise entitlement. Rates regulation materials frequently cite toll and rate as near-synonyms in the context of carriers and utilities, but toll historically carried the franchise-right connotation that "rate" does not. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier provides the clearest definition of toll as a charge for use of roads and bridges, noting the state's inability to burden interstate commerce through discriminatory tolls — a reference to Commerce Clause doctrine that had already produced significant litigation by the time of Bouvier's writing. Bouvier also notes that mill-toll rates were regulated by statute in most states, situating the term within early regulatory history. Burrill's etymological grounding (Saxon tol, Latin tolnetum, tholonium) is useful for tracing the term through feudal and manorial materials. Burrill captures both the tribute-for-passage meaning and the lord's right to buy and sell in the market — confirming that the word historically straddled both the payment and the franchise. Black's 2nd Edition, though the historical excerpt in this corpus is fragmentary, reflects the fair-and-market usage and the dual active/passive sense (right to take toll / right to be free from toll) that Jacob's legal dictionary had established. This dual sense was standard in English legal literature through the 18th century. None of the historical dictionaries addressed in the source corpus give significant treatment to the suspend-a-limitations-period meaning — that usage developed primarily through American case law in the 19th and 20th centuries and would not have been the natural entry point for lexicographers working in the English common law tradition. The absence of this meaning from Bouvier, Burrill, and Black's 2nd is itself a research signal: older sources indexed under "toll" will not illuminate modern tolling doctrine. ---
Jurisdictional Note
Toll-road franchise law is primarily a state matter and varies widely; states differ on whether a toll authority's rate-setting is legislative, administrative, or quasi-contractual. For limitations tolling, federal courts apply federal tolling doctrine to federal claims and look to state law for state claims; state tolling statutes are not uniform and may differ substantially in recognized grounds, computation rules, and interaction with discovery rules. ---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
civpro_132: Tolling Doctrines — Equitable Tolling, Fraudulent Concealment, and Class Action Tolling (The Law Mind Civil Procedure & Evidence Encyclopedia) property_89: Adverse Possession — Disability Statutes (Tolling) (The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia) ---
Related Terms
Statute of limitations — Equitable tolling — Fraudulent concealment — American Pipe tolling — Laches — Adverse possession — Prescriptive easement — Franchise — Toll road — Rate regulation — Disseisin — Entry (right of) — Discovery rule — Disability (legal) — Waiver — Estoppel
TOLLmain
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910
held of some superior lord, « ¢., by ‘way of tenure, (q. v.) The former clause is called the “habendum,;” the latter, the “tenendum.” Co. Litt. 6a. bought and sold. It is a reasonable sum of money -due to the owner of the fair or market, upon Bale of things tollable within the same. The word is used for a liberty as well to take as to be free from toll. Jacob. Wi ae NP - Im. modern English law. A reasonable sum due to the lord of a fair or market for things sold there which are tolluble. 1 Crabb, Real Prop. p. 350, § G88. In contracts. A sum of money for the tse of something, generally applied to the consideration which is paid for the use of a road, bridge, or the like, of a public nature. See Sands v. Manistee River Imp. Co., 123 U. S. 288, 8 Sup. Ct 113, 31 L. Ed. 149; Wadsworth v. Smith, 11 Me. 283, 26 Am. Dec. 525; Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Delaware & H. Canal Co., 3 Abb. Dec. (N. Y.) 477; St. ‘Louis v. Green, 7 Mo. App. 476; McNeal Pipe & Foundry Co. v. Howland, 111 N. C. 615, 16 S. E. 857, 20 L. R. A. 748; Boyle v. Philadelphia & R. R. Co., 54 Pa. 314. —Toll and team. Words constantly associated with Saxon and old English grants of liberties to the lords of manors. Bract. fols. 56, 1046, 124d, 154b. They appear to have imrted the privileges of having a market, and gurisdiction of villeins. See ‘LEAM.—Toll-gatherer. The. officer who takes or collects toll. —Toll-thorough. In English law. A toll for passing through a highway, or-over a ferry or bridge. Cowell. A toll paid to a town for such a number of ‘beasts, or for every beast that goes through the town, or over a bridge or ferry belonging to it. Com. Dig. “Toll,” ©. A toli claimed by an individual where he is bound to repair some particular highway. Steph. Comm. 257. And ts King v. Nicholson, 412 East. 340; Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 11 Pet. 5&2, 9 L. Ed. (73.—Tolle traverse. In English law. A toll for passing Over a private man’s ground. Cowell. A toll for passing over the private soil of another. or for driving beasts across his ground. Cro. Eliz. 710.—Toll-turn. In English law. A toll on beasts returning from a market. 1 Crabb, Real ta eas 101, § 102. A toll paid at the return of sts from fair or market, though they were not sold. Cowell.
TOLLmain
Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890
一定 ​I I E and prior use or by registration and notice under statutes. See TRADE-MARK. 5. As used with reference to the naval and military service, "title" is the name by which an office, or the holder of an office, is designated and distinguished, and by which the officer has a right to be addressed.1 "Grade" is one of the divisions or degrees in the particular branch of the service, according to which officers therein are arranged; "rank" is the position of officers of different grades or of the same grade, in point of authority, precedence, or the like, of one over another. Sometimes "rank" is used as synonymous with "grade," and the title of an officer (e. g., admiral, or vice-admiral) may denote both his grade and rank,¹ q. v. 6. An addition to one's name; as, a title of office, of honor, or nobility. See ADDITION, 2. In England, titles of nobility are hereditary. "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person Holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State." 2 "No State shall grant any Title of Nobility." 3 Titles of nobility were thought inconsistent with the theory of republican institutions, which is perfect equality of rights. The first provision quoted anticipates and prevents foreign influence in the affairs of government. See MINISTER, 3; NATURALIZATION, "Fourth;" RANE. 1, υ. Το bar, defeat, take away: as, to toll an entry into lands; entry tolls the statute of limitations. Tolled: removed, barred. 2, n. A Saxon word, originally signifying a payment in towns, markets, or fairs for goods and cattle bought and sold there. Now, popularly applied to the charges which canal and railroad companies make for transporting goods.8 The legal meaning is, a tribute or custom paid for passage, not for carriage - always something taken for a liberty or privilege, not for a service; and such is the common understanding.9 Thus, the tolls taken by a turnpike or canal company do not include charges for transportation; such tolls are merely an excise to be paid for using the way. In common-law usage, "toll" applies to a large class of dues and exactions in the nature of fixed rights, and which cannot lawfully be exceeded. It is almost universally connected with some franchise, which involves duties as well as privileges of a public or private nature. The right to receive fixed tolls is found in fairs, markets, mills, turnpikes, ferries, 1 Moran v. Lezotte, 54 Mich. 87 (1884), Cooley, C. J. 2 Revenue Act 13 July, 1866, § 9: 14 St. L. 120; 1 Hughes, 326. A. S. tacen, pointing out, indicating. 4 Jones v. State, 50 Ind. 476 (1875), cases, Buskirk, J. • People v. Johnson, 10 Johns. *292 (1815). • People v. Donaldson, 70 Cal. 118 (1886), cases. 7 Probably allied to tale, tally: tell, account. • Fennsylvania Coal Co. v. Delaware, &c. Canal Co., 29 Barb. 592 (1859). • Boyle v. Philadelphia, &c. R. Co., 54 Pa. 314 (1867), Strong, J.; Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Sly, 65 id. 210 (1870), Sharswood, J.
TOLLv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To take away; to vacate; to annul.
TOLLv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To draw; to entice; to allure. See Tole. To cause to sound, as a bell, with strokes slowly and uniformly repeated; as, to toll the funeral bell. "The sexton tolled the bell." Hood. To strike, or to indicate by striking, as the hour; to ring a toll for; as, to toll a departed friend. Shak. Slow tolls the village clock the drowsy hour. Beattie. To call, summon, or notify, by tolling or ringing. When hollow murmurs of their evening bells Dismiss the sleepy swains, and toll them to their cells. Dryden.
TOLLv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To sound or ring, as a bell, with strokes uniformly repeated at intervals, as at funerals, or in calling assemblies, or to announce the death of a person. The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll. Shak. Now sink in sorrows with a tolling bell. Pope.
tollverb
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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To draw; pull; tug; drag. | To tear in pieces. | To draw; entice; invite; allure. | To lure with bait; tole (especially, fish and animals).
tollverb
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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simple past and past participle of tell
Tollname
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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A surname.

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